Hi all, Glitch here with another update about what's been going on with me, my art and my Newgrounds. I want to aim to make at least one of these things a month, which I seem to have been successful in doing so far. I'll probably try to aim future GlitchBuddy Updates for around the midway point of each month. For now though, let's get into it!

Art

A new character approaches!

The concept character grind continues, and this one's a special one, because it's a co-production! Me and my good friend @aapiarts collaborated on designing a new character, based on an idea I had a while back about a "friendly creature who absolutely LOVES rubbish". After a lot of discussion about a lot of details (yes, even down to the shade of orange), this is what we created. Say hello to Core!

Core is a travelling slug-like creature who absolutely adores trash. He spends his days looking for trash, admiring it, and collecting the pieces of trash he likes the most in his little metal trash can. Naturally, Core spends most of his time in large trash dumps, although the owners of said dumps aren't too pleased about it. Core is generally well-loved by the public, who'll sometimes donate pieces of their trash to him.

Core doesn't just collect trash, he wears it too. Apart from his rusty trash-can-on-a-rope that's always slung across his shoulder, he also wears a black trash bag on his head, a pair of old, torn rubber gloves on his hands, and a white plastic shopping bag tied around his arm, all of which are very sentimental to him.

As for the art itself, you can see I've once again been making use of WaterC Special Blobs, this time as a way to draw dirt on Core's face and body, as well as a couple rust spots on his trash can. Drawing the initial outline for Core was very hard as I had never dealt with a character of this shape before, and it took a LOT of attempts to get something I was happy with. If I could improve one thing about this artwork, it would be making Core's arm blend in a bit better with the overall art style.

Here's aapi's drawing of him, which I got permission to share. He insisted that Core should have a missing front tooth, which I liked the idea of.

Overall, this is something that me and aapi are both very proud of, and we are definitely open to designing more characters together in the future.

Fun fact, by the way: The slime like substance Core's species produces is usually supposed to be a light-blue colour, but in Core's case, since the glands that produce it are so clogged up with dirt and grime, it appears as more of a yellow-green colour.

Ditko wakes up

I have one other piece of art left to talk about for this update, and it's one I only uploaded yesterday as of writing. I call it "Waking Up":

For a while now, I've been wanting to draw Ditko during the days before he became a dimensional traveller, and I think this resulting drawing turned out pretty well. For those who don't know the lore, before Ditko was a dimensional traveller, he was a depressed and emotionally distraught individual with a heavy addiction to Ponko Juice, a drink that produces alcohol-like effects. He would often wake up like this after a night of heavy drinking, with very little memory of the events that happened before. As you can imagine, in the days since, he's sworn to never touch the stuff again.

This drawing features the GlitchBuddy debut of two new Krita brushes. A brush called "Dry Bristles Eroded" was used to provide the texture of the asphalt, which resulted in a very nice wearing effect. Another one called "Charcoal Rock Soft" was used for the double yellow lines on the road, which I think makes them look a bit more realistic compared to if I had just used the basic hard brush.

I also tried my hand at some hard shading again, which is something I'm aiming to include at a base level in all of my future full-scale drawings. As I imagined there would be lights coming from the buildings to the right (off-canvas), I drew the shadows pointing towards the left. Ditko's shadow isn't exactly the most accurate thing in the world, but hey, I'm slowly improving.

If there are three things I could improve about this artwork, they would be:

• Drawing more accurate shapes for the hard shadows. The one on the Ponko Juice bottle is decent enough, but Ditko's shadow is missing his antenna, as well as not really being accurate to his body shape.
• Using darker colours (or alternatively light filters) for a nighttime scene. This is something I did with the crushed-up soda can on the side of the road, but Ditko and the Ponko Juice bottles look too bright in comparison.
• Adding some more detail onto Ditko to really drive the point home that his life is a mess; for example, some dirt near his stomach, or perhaps a cut or bruise on his face.

Still, this is one that I am again proud of.

Newgrounds

Elite Guard Barracks!

Around the time I made the first GlitchBuddy Update (link for those who haven't seen it), I was starting to get into something called the Elite Guard Barracks (EGB). For those who aren't aware, the Elite Guard Barracks is an unofficial Newgrounds group comprised of people with a strong passion for game & movie judging, who convene in a forum thread to report bad submissions, give advice on how to properly judge and rate, and overall help make the Newgrounds Portal a cleaner place. This is something I had been passionately doing even before I found out about the EGB, so this seemed like the perfect group for me.

Well, after about a month of posting bad submissions to the thread, I'm pleased to say that I've finally, officially joined the group! Look, that's my name on the list and everything!

I've joined as something called the ROTC, which is the EGB's term for those who don't yet meet the requirements to become a full member. ROTC members are given a little extra leeway when it comes to mistakes, and are there to learn the ways of the EGB before they become a fully-fledged officer. The requirements to become a full member are to have 2,500 combined B/P points and at least a bronze whistle. As of writing, I'm at just over 1,750 total B/P and have a bronze whistle, so if I keep things up at the pace I'm at now then I should become an officer in around 1-2 months' time. Regardless of whether I'm an officer or an ROTC member, I'm really excited to be a part of the group, and it's definitely given me the motivation I've needed to keep judging and reporting. I'll let you know where I get up to next month!

Abandonware

Another club I joined between this update and the last is one called Abandonware, which despite the name is a club dedicated to sharing and discussing your OCs. As a character designer, this seemed right up my alley, so I decided to join! Unfortunately it hasn't really been on my mind as much as the EGB, although I still do want to post there occasionally. However, it has worked in getting a few new eyes on my art, so that's something! I'll probably make a post there after I finish writing this blog.

Medal grinding

If you know me, you know I love seeing a meaningless number on a screen go up, and what's the one thing people on here tend to grind other than B/P? That's right, medal points! I'm already an achievement hunter on PC and consoles anyway, so why not add Newgrounds medals into the mix?

My grind started out with 157 medals that I had already gotten from just casually playing games on the site. As of writing, my medal counter sits at 188. I'll go into more detail about the specific games I've been playing in the gaming section of this update.

Games of the Munchies 2024

This is something I only found out about last night, when my friend aapi suggested I should look into it. For those of you who aren't aware, the Newgrounds Games of the Munchies (GOTM) are a Hunger Games-style event hosted by Newgrounds user TheShokBlok, where you submit your OC as one of 24 participants in a battle to the death, with only one OC remaining victorious. He uses an online Hunger Games simulator to generate the events that happen during the tournament, and he draws little sketches of your OCs doing the things that the simulator spits out. It's honestly a really cool concept.

The GOTM is something that I vaguely remember happening last year, but this is the first time I myself am joining in. I've entered Glitch and Gummi in as a duo, which is allowed because Gummi is both tiny and non-humanoid. As part of the entry, you're required to fill out a sheet explaining things like your character's name, lore, abilities, personality and even their thoughts about death. Here's the form I filled out:

I can't wait to see how these guys do! Hopefully they don't die on the first day...

Gaming

Newgrounds

The start of my medal grind involved me trying to unlock any medals I was missing in the games that I had already played, as well as a couple of new ones.

Toss the Turtle

A classic "launcher" game, as I like to call them. Is it the first one ever? I don't know, but it's pretty fun nonetheless. You launch a turtle as far as you can using a cannon, and keep it in the air using a gun (yeah, idk either). You earn money every time you launch your turtle, which you can use to buy better cannons and weapons, as well as extras like chest bombs and nukes.

I'd already had half of the medals unlocked from a time when I played this game back in 2022, so all I needed to do was to complete the game, which was an alright time. I don't remember my exact record, but I think it's around 3 million feet. One medal I didn't enjoy as much, however, was the one that required you to play for 2 hours total. The game got a bit boring after a while, but I'm the type of guy who likes to do things in one go. Even so, it was late at night and I had to go to sleep and come back to it the next day. Still, I'm happy I managed to 100% this one.

Trivial Trivia: The Newgrounds Collection

This is one of the new games I've played in my grind so far. As the name suggests, it's a trivia game all about Newgrounds, with questions revolving around the website itself, the events it holds, and some of its most legendary series. I had a bit of trouble connecting the game to my Newgrounds account at first, but after that was sorted it was smooth sailing... for the most part.

The highest score I've been able to get so far was on Friday Night Funkin' trivia. As I used to be really into FNF around 2021, I found this one to be easy, and have scored 100 a total of 7 times so far. My second highest score is on general Newgrounds trivia, where I managed to get 80 points. My lowest score so far is on Pebbles trivia, where I somehow managed to get 25 points despite having never seen a single Pebbles video in my life. Seriously, all my answers were complete guesses. I should probably watch some Pebbles...

NG BBS Awards 2022

Another old one from my early days of the site, NG BBS Awards 2022 isn't really a game per se, but more so an interactive experience used to showcase the winners of the titular awards ceremony. There's one for 2023 as well, but I haven't played it yet.

There were only two medals I hadn't unlocked, and they were both secret. Newgrounds actually lets you see the details of a secret medal if you view it on the profile of a user who has already unlocked the medal, which is how I was able to see them. Turns out, they both required you to click on specific areas in the awards window, which I guess I just didn't come across when I originally played it back in 2022. Anyway, nice easy one to complete.

Crunky's Fun Rager

Another new game I've played during the start of my grind. It's a game about a bunny seeking revenge against creatures called Crunko Pops... for some reason. The gameplay involves the screen slowly scrolling to the right while you, as Crunky, stomp, shoot and essentially kill the Crunko Pops in any way you can.

So far I've only gotten 4 out of 20 medals in this one, but that's probably because I was playing it really late at night and I was feeling a bit... cranky (get it?). I did find some of the mechanics a bit annoying; for example, there's a gun you can grab that automatically shoots, and you need to shoot a number of Crunko Pops within a certain time limit in order to progress towards unlocking a bonus. But some of the Crunko Pops are hard to kill this way, and there have been several occasions my bullet narrowly missed them by a pixel because they were just slightly higher than me. Regardless, I wouldn't consider it anything game-ruining, and I plan to come back to this one at some point.

Gappy's Playground

The last Newgrounds game I'm gonna discuss today is another one I had previously played around the beginning of 2023. It's called Gappy's Playground, and it serves as a sort of experimental proof-of-concept title in the legendary Gappy series of platformer games by LeviRamerez. There are 4 levels in total, and you can play through them in any order you please.

I'd only previously unlocked one of the five medals in this game, which was for collecting 100 dollars' worth of coins. The remaining medals are for 500 dollars, 999 dollars, breaking every block in the game, and a secret one that looks to me like a sort of easter egg hidden somewhere (it's worth 100 points, so I'd better find it). So far in my grind, I've only managed to unlock the one for collecting 500 dollars, so this is another one to come back to. There's a difficult area in the game called the "Worm Zone" that I still need to complete, too.

PC & Console

Written by Gummi

Hey guys, it's ya boi gum here again, and oh boy have things been crazy since my last update. There are four games for me to talk about today, so let's stop the yapping and get right into it.

Doki-Doki Universe (PS4)

So you may remember in the last update I talked about a game called Doki-Doki Universe. I had already completed the PS3/Vita version, and I was working on completing the PS4 version too.

Well guys, you'll never believe what happened. I was in the middle of leaving one of the planets to do something else, when the game crashed. "Eh," I thought to myself, "it does that a lot. I'm probably gonna have to do a whole bunch of stuff again which is a bit annoying, but it's no biggie."

I start up the game again. The game loads.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I get a message saying my save had become corrupted and it was deleted.

I cannot believe what I am seeing. Out of desperation, I dismiss the message and hit the continue button on the title screen anyway.

It loads my old save from the PS3/Vita version.

Excuse me Sony, but what the fuck!?

I'm probably not gonna come back to this game again, at least not for a very long time, because it's just so damn tedious to 100% everything. This is something that's really annoyed me, and now I'm forever cursed to seeing "71%" on my trophy list. Alas, the grind must continue, so I swiftly moved onward to my next game...

Death Squared (PS4)

I played this game for a bit back when I had a PS Plus subscription, and it had been sitting in my trophy list for a while. Curious, I looked in the PlayStation Store and found that it was on sale for only a couple of quid, so I bought it from there, and the trophy hunt restarted.

Death Squared is a game where you control these little coloured square robots, which you must place on matching checkpoints by solving puzzles:

[Screenshot from Steam]

For example, Red's checkpoint is that little red circle to the left.

In order to 100% the trophies, among other things, you have to complete all 80 story puzzles and all 40 party puzzles. The story puzzles have you controlling two robots, while the party puzzles involve four. You control each robot by tilting an analogue stick; Red is controlled by the left stick while Blue is controlled by the right. Surprisingly, the developers let you play the party levels with just one controller by using the triggers; L2 + left stick controls Yellow, while R2 + right stick controls Green.

The controls were decent, and I enjoyed the humour provided by the bored testing technician you play as, but god DAMN were these puzzles hard. I eventually resorted to using a walkthrough by the time I got to around the 50th level, but even then I was having trouble, as you have to position each bot in a specific way for some puzzles. And holy shit, I have been through very few grinds as tedious as completing all the party puzzles. I genuinely spent up until 1am one night just trying to complete the main story. I'd be lying if I didn't say that the game started to get really boring during these times.

Eventually, after a fuck ton of grinding and a lot of lost sleep, I earned the platinum. I don't think I'll be achievement hunting this one on any more platforms.

Woodle Tree 2 Deluxe+ (Xbox One)

During the last update, I talked about a game called Woodle Tree Adventures for the PS4. I mentioned how, while you can tell the developers put effort into it, it didn't exactly hit the mark, and I suggested you check out the second game instead. Well, seeing as I've almost completed all the achievements for that one, it's finally time for me to talk about what is genuinely one of my favourite games of all time: Woodle Tree 2 Deluxe!

Instead of the linear approach taken with the first game, Woodle Tree 2 puts you in a massive open world that you're free to explore all the nooks and crannies of. While there are specific themed areas of the game that you have to go through in order to progress, you're free to do them in any order you please (apart from the first level), not to mention all of the secrets to discover both inside and outside of them. Your goal is to go through each level collecting three "water tears" in order to restore the tree sages that protect your land.

I genuinely had fun with this one. Not only is the game really smooth to control, but it's fun to look for collectibles, even if a bit irritating at times. Additionally, there are 12 "sacred flowers" dotted around the map, each of which you must wake up by completing a difficult platforming level or puzzle.

I played the Xbox One version of the game this time around, as it was the one I already had the most achievements unlocked in at the time. As of now, the only achievement I'm missing is the one where you have to play with a friend, as I can't control more than one controller at a time. I'd have to wait for Glitch to help me out, which he'd be able to do if he would just stop writing this blog post...

Overall, if you're into platformers and collectathons, then I would 100% without a shadow of a doubt recommend picking this one up. You'll have a good time, I promise you.

Gears of War (Xbox 360)

And finally, we get to the game I've been playing most recently, the original Gears of War for the Xbox 360. After playing so many indies for so long, I figured it was about time I get stuck into a AAA title. This is one of the 360 games that's backwards compatible with Xbox One and Series X/S, so I've been playing it on my Series X.

The story involves a group of soldiers as they attempt to defeat the Locust Horde, a malevolent faction of creatures intent on destroying humanity. The game looks pretty good, especially for such an early 360 title. The shooting gameplay is alright, although it does get repetitive at points. Right now I'm in Act 2 of the game, in an area where you must keep close to a light source or else you'll be immediately killed by these bird-like creatures. I've been stuck on this area since yesterday, but hopefully I'll find a way through.

Plans for the future

Gears of War has separate achievements for completing each act on each difficulty; for example, completing Act 1 on Casual difficulty and completing Act 1 on Hardcore difficulty are two separate achievements. There are also these collectibles called Cog Tags that are scattered throughout the game, and you must collect all of them to earn another achievement.

Therefore, my plan right now is to finish the Gears of War campaign on Casual difficulty without worrying too much about the Cog Tags, so I can get a feel for the game and its different areas. Once I've completed that, I'll switch over to my PS4 so I can get the platinum trophy for Woodle Tree 2 Deluxe+ on there; I've already essentially completed the Xbox One version so it should be a nice easy platinum. After that's done, I'll go back to Gears of War and play through the campaign on Hardcore difficulty, and use a guide to collect all of the Cog Tags. Right now I'm unsure when I'll play through Insane difficulty, the hardest difficulty the game has to offer.

Conclusion

Another GlitchBuddy update complete! I honestly didn't expect to write this much at all; from what I can see in this little preview window it looks to be at least twice as big as the previous update. I guess I've just gotten better at writing about stuff, and knowing what I want to write about. A lot has been happening for me lately in terms of both my art and my Newgrounds career, and I'm excited to see where it will take me in the future.

Anyway, you know how I said that I'm the type of guy who likes to do things in one go? Yeah, apart from a half-hour break, this entire blog post was written in one go. I know robots like me don't tend to get tired, but I really do feel like I need a break from computing all of these thoughts. Thanks for sticking with me through the update, and I'll be sure to see you in the next one!

-Glitch [ I - ]

NG Stats

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